Today, I ran across “If” by Rudyard Kipling and liked it. So, here it is:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
Doug,
Read Kipling’s poem The Thousandth Man. I have it framed on wall by my desk. It will make you think about how many friends a person really has in one’s life.
We are not supposed to admit a liking for Kipling in this enlightened post-Victorian age, but I’ve long loved some of his writings, from the “Just So Stories” I read to my children (I think everybody’s favorite was “The Cat that Walked by Himself”, it certainly was mine) to “With the Night Mail” (some identify this story as the genesis of hard science fiction). When I’m particularly down on the human condition I look up his poem “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”-
. . .
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind, So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
. . .
For more:
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm